Those digging through the Halo 3 beta code uncovered many unannounced features and components to Halo 3. Some that have since been confirmed by Bungie (Armour Permutations, Brute Chopper) and others left a little less concrete.

One of the more believable discoveries however, was that of the weapons list – featuring the return of the Flamethrower and the introduction of a new weapon, named the Excavator.

Now Bungie have said nothing about the legitimacy of these finds as of yet, but a recent render (supposedly from a source close to Bungie) has surfaced on the forums of Xbox.com showing what appears to be an early design of said weapon.

Is this for real? I’m not so sure, it could after all simply be a fan-made render. But there seems to be a few pieces of evidence suggesting it’s legit, which makes this particular leap of faith… pretty darn cool.

In the ‘Steaktacular’ Humpday Challenge featured on Bungie.net a little while back, Luke Smith talks of a new unannounced weapon – a ‘hand cannon of death’, that sits pretty well with the picture above.

“The round starts and Joe and I each pick up one of these new weapons. These are awe-inspiring cannons that fit in one hand, a fistful of death and head toward a power-up.”

We’ve not really seen all that much in the way of Brute weaponry so far in Halo 3 and given their large involvement in the story it’s reasonably safe to assume there’s more to be unveiled.

Take a look at the shot below, taken from the ‘Et Tu, Brute?‘ documentary.

Note the rotating barrel and single handed ‘cannon’ like aesthetics of this, at the time, unfinished Brute weapon.

But it doesn’t end there either. Flash back to this video, titled ‘The Evolution of Halo’ – made up of early footage of the first game. At around the 2:49 mark, we see Master Chief pull out an alien weapon that again looks strangely familiar.

Hell, Bungie themselves even refer to it in the video as a ‘Boring‘ weapon. That’s boring as in Excavating, and now I’m sensing a theme.

Could this be the first real sighting of the Excavator? A particularly devastating Brute-sounding weapon of mass destruction. Perhaps a grenade launcher or power-packing pistol of some sort? At this point we really don’t know, and as stated earlier the source of the ‘new’ render is nothing short of suspiscious – it just, well… kinda adds up don’t it?

Take a look for yourself and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.